Stewart: 'Nemesis' Is 'Very Appropriate Finale'

Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard) has said that he firmly believes 'Nemesis' will be the last outing for the Next Generation crew.

"My feeling is that this is probably it," Stewart told Empire magazine. Despite there being "more partings and more separations in the screenplay" than what ended up in the final cut, Stewart still feels the message was clear: "The way this film ends is a very appropriate finale for Next Generation. But it feels to me that there's nothing more to add to Next Generation. And now it's over."

Even starring in 'Nemesis' wasn't a given, and required some deliberation as the actor explained. "I think we all felt that there was an impulsive that we had to move on," Stewart said. "One of the reasons that there was a longer hiatus between 'Nemesis' and 'Insurrection' was that some of us needed time to decide weather we really wanted to do another one."

Stewart will, according to the magazine, be taking time to do more theatre, as well as develop some TV projects with wife and ex-TNG associate producer Wendy Neuss.

Meanwhile in 'Nemesis'-related news, head of Paramount motion pictures Sherry Lansing spoke to Entertainment Weekly according to TrekWeb. She spoke about the box office failure of 'Nemesis', and echoing comments by Rick Berman recently (story) said: "It was a very big disappointment to us and remains a mystery. We can only assume that the fan base in some way has shrunk." Her comments can be found in the February 21 issue, in an article entitled 'Falling 'Star''.

The full mini-interview with Patrick Stewart can be found in the March 2003 issue of Empire, while the original Sherry Lansing report can be found here at Trekweb.